


Ghost Stories

by kyo_chan



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-07-06
Updated: 2012-07-11
Packaged: 2017-11-15 16:21:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/529222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyo_chan/pseuds/kyo_chan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two ghosts haunting the same dive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Rituals

**Author's Note:**

> I was in the mood to write and pulled up a random prompt list on my hard drive. I think there will be several of these little drabbles and the prompts will mostly come from 50 Kinky Ways. Oh, and obviously, Kimblee didn't die with Pride.  
> Prompt: Rituals

It had been a dive bar when Ed first walked into it, and it was still a dive bar over a year later. The tables were always sticky and the air smelled of beer and sweat. He’d wandered into it one night while Al was still with the medics at Central HQ, still too unwell to travel very far. All he’d wanted was someplace where he could fade into dirty shadows and not come out until the liquor made him feel human again.

The man’s face had been a surprise, and he thought it had been a trick of his beer-hazed imagination. But he couldn’t mistake those piercing wolf eyes, the matching grin that slowly pulled at thin lips.

“Fancy meeting you here,” Zolf Kimblee had rumbled against his ear upon his approach.

Ed hadn’t recoiled, hadn’t flinched. “Looks like this is where the ghosts come to be forgotten.”

Crimson had been as surprised to find Ed bereft of alchemy as Fullmetal had been to find Kimblee alive at all. They raised a mug to no longer being who they used to be, too far displaced in the here and now to ever go back. The night became early morning in equal spans of dark laughter and an unusually comfortable silence. Liquor flowed freely, words even more so. Ed remembered telling Kimblee he should probably head back, but woke up hours later on a sofa in a tiny apartment with the smell of coffee at war with his raging headache.

In spite of the wretched hangover, Kimblee’s coffee was as good as his company. Bitter, refreshing. Ed left before noon in his rumpled clothes, already knowing he would go back there just to see if he’d imagined it all. The same wolf lurked in the shadows, hunted his table, caught his mark and raised the glass. Chance encounters became anticipated hauntings, and Ed often woke on the same couch in the same immaculate box of an apartment. Ed told himself that nothing could have offered a more perfect salvation.

Until the morning he awoke in Kimblee’s bed.


	2. Conversation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little conversation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know what it is about these two, but they get surprisingly deep on me.

“So you actually work here?”

Ed absently traced Zolf’s chest and abdomen with his fingertips, roaming the subtle dips, turns and scars. His eyes flickered between the man’s face and the movement of his hand, the right one, his brow furrowing every now in a shade of disbelief. Zolf still hadn’t quite figured out of it was because of him or the distinct absence of steel.

The well-kept little apartment Ed often found himself in lately was right above the dingy bar where his life had taken a turn he had never seen coming.

“Behind the scenes,” the former Crimson Alchemist answered. “I balance the books, keep things running smoothly. As long as this place keeps going, I have my anonymity and a place to sleep. As you can see, we have no shortage of ghosts looking for a haunt to drown in.”

Ed smiled, the joke comfortable between them now. “You could do with cleaning the place up a bit.”

“Why? People who feel dirty on the inside are going to look for a place that is dirty on the outside. Otherwise, they’ll feel like they don’t belong.”

“I guess.” The look on his face told Zolf he understood completely, even if he didn’t want to admit it.

He reached out to run spidery fingers through mussed strands of golden hair. “It’s comfortable enough as it is. Suitable for you and me, at the very least.” Cradling the back of Ed’s head, he pulled the younger man down to him, meeting his lips firmly. As it often happened, Ed responded hungrily, biting and fighting Zolf’s tongue with his own. A low hum stirred in Zolf’s chest as they broke apart. “I wouldn’t change a thing.”

“Neither would I.”


End file.
